Friday, December 28, 2012

So it's been a little while since I've put up one of these, huh? Sorry about that! I lent my camera to my in-laws so they could take pictures of all the hurricane damage in their house for the insurance companies and so I couldn't take pictures. I know, that's really know excuse because the internet does have pictures on it that I could have used (and it's not like I used real live photos every time either).

But, I got a little overwhelmed. And then the more I'd wait, the more books I'd get and then it just sort of snowballed from there. So here's a selection of what I've been finding room for on my shelves for the past, oh, month or so.

I'm still not sure if this is the right book for me. The description begins with, "A fiery and romantic adventure, perfect for fans of Grace Lin, Kristen Cashore, or Lisa See!" And I am TOTALLY down with "a fiery and romantic adventure" but I have no clue who Grace Lin is, Kristen Cashore and I are on mixed terms, and Lisa See makes me think of boredom.

Still, it IS historical fiction, the MC sounds like she has sleepover potential, and I am pretty curious to find out about that "betrayal that destroys all her dreams." Plus, a sizzling romance that develops on the journey to America? And they DON'T hit an iceberg and die along the way? Yes, sign me up, please. (Although, Sterling Promise? Really? I'm not sure I can swoon for a guy named Sterling Promise). Also, is it just me, or does that cover make it look like this will be a girl-dresses-as-boy kind of book? I don't think that's in the book.

I'm still not clear on whether this is historical fiction or non-fiction, but either way I'm excited. All the librarians and list makers are buzzing over how thrilling and interesting and you have to read this book, and I'm totally sucked into the hype.

I mean, it's about an attempt to steal Lincoln's body! And it's based on real actual truth!

At first I was all, "Not another holocaust book!" because grade school pretty much saturated me with holocaust books. But this one really does sound different. Based on a true story, we follow a young boy as he survives ten different concentration camps. I admit, I'm curious.Unsolicited review copy from Scholastic.

I'm a little confused about the title (is it Powerless or Dragon Run?) but that cover has convinced me that this is a book I need to read. It sounds a little like Ordinary Magic with a kid from a magical land getting ranked with basically no magical powers and forced to run from people who want to kill them. But more adventurous.

Horrible disease of unknown everything spreads and kills kids when they reach, surprise surprise, puberty! Those who managed to survive end up developing superpowers. YAY! But they're rounded up and sent to concentration camps where they're sorted into color groups based on the nature of their powers. Less yay.

Ruby, our wishy-washy heroine, is really a majorly dangerous Orange (mind control!) but she has a rare moment of decisive intelligence and uses her power to make her captors think she's a benign Green (codebreaker extraordinaire). When they start to catch on to her deception, she manages to escape with the help of a shady group of rebels!

Soon after, she meets up with a stereotypical but lovable group of motley runaways, including The Smart One, The Cute Shy Kid, and The Hot One. Thus begins a periodically slow but also occasionally rollicking quest to find the Slip Kid, the rumored leader of a superpower utopia who can help them find their families.

Review

Why isn't this the sequel to Brightly Woven?

Ok, I'll admit, right off the bat I was disappointed with The Darkest Minds. And this is totally unfair of me, because I hadn't even possessed a copy of the book yet, let alone read a single word in it.

It's just, I loved Brightly Woven, Alexandra Bracken's first book, so darn much and I've had a hard time accepting the fact that she wrote another book and it 1) isn't a sequel and 2) isn't even a high fantasy.

It's a dystopia, and we all know I have a rocky relationship with that genre.

But, it's Alexandra Bracken! So I was cautious, but my hopes were still pretty darn high.

So, what kind of dystopia is this anyway?

Not the great kind. But not the bad kind either. It's kind of a middling dystopia with an interesting premise that miraculously focuses neither on romance nor that excruciating, slow, and totally stupid "slow awakening" that takes hundreds of pages to basically say, "duh, this world sucks." So, yay!

Ruby knows from the get-go that her world is messed up (hey, she grew up in a concentration camp). This journey is faster paced than most Book 1 dystopias since Ruby spends the majority of it running away from various bad people out to either harm her or use her for her powers.

The only downside is, despite her awesome superpower, she doesn't actually do a whole lot of fighting back. And the few times she does? It's straight to the fetal position of shock and shame for our hero. So don't expect Buffy.

The good

Alexandra Bracken's world is also sort of a dystopia/post-apocalyptic cross, which upped its awesome points because I love post-apoc stories.

There's a government that sends its children to concentration camps and kills A TON of people because they're super duper evil like that. And, really, let me stress A TON. Dead. This evil government is actually hardcore evil with a body count to match the dystopia genre tag. Bracken's not playing around here.

On top of that, most of the population was convinced that this move was the right thing to do, and the fact that they felt this way actually made sense (unlike some YA dystopias). At this point I was so happy to have a dystopia grounded in plausible reality that I was almost ready to forgive Alexandra Bracken for not spending her every writing moment penning me more Wayland North scenes. Almost.

Even better, most of the book follows main character Ruby (concentration camp escapee) and her rag-tag group of similarly superpowered youths as they travel across the country trying to survive in the post-apocalyptic land while being pursued by multiple groups of baddies all out to get them.

Did you get all that? Here, let me break down the awesome for you:

1) Kids with superpowers! Have I mentioned how much I love this plot point? The superpowers in The Darkest Minds were a little more joy-suck ala Rogue-can't-touch-people-without-killing-them and a little less wish-fulfillment than I'd like, but superpowers are still superpowers and you can never go too wrong by adding them to any plot.

2) Road trip! Another plot point that automatically elevates a storyline. There's even a sort of quest to find a mythical utopia for superpowered kids that can only be located by first finding and then cracking a code, which is pretty much another sentence packed with win right there.

Though I could have done with a cooler road trip vehicle than a minivan. For crying out loud.

Seriously YA authors, what gives? First we get Edward's decidedly uncool "Safety First" Volvo, and now this?! Have you not seen The Omega Man? Mad Max? If I ever find myself cruising around in a post-apocalyptic land, you'd better believe I'll be driving in V8-muscle style.

3) Pursuit. Always gets the heart racing.

4) Multiple groups of baddies. It would have been fine if Alexandra Bracken had created a bad government and left it at that. But multiple groups? That makes A LOT more sense. This world is fractured, so it's totally logical that there would be more than one group with an agenda running around. It could have been SO easy for Alexandra Bracken to have divided her lines across stark good and bad, government versus anti-government and called it a day.

But she didn't, and I love her for it. The development of different groups with their sometimes aligned and sometimes at odds agendas make perfect sense and kept both Ruby and myself on our toes. Who can we trust? Anyone? No one? I'm still not sure where to put my loyalties, if anywhere, but I know I want to find out more about all of them.

And one final good

Chubs. Ah, I love this guy. He's part of Ruby's group of runaways and while he spends a good part of the book annoyed with her, he's a total genius and a softie and I love him.

He's a great guy and he has great chemistry with Ruby whether they're fighting or friendly, but it's purely on a friend level. And that's where I want it to stay. It's like Anne and Diana or Kirk and Spock (and while some fan fictions might go there, that's just wrong). Their friendships are perfection and I love that an author actually focused on developing a meaningful friendship instead of romance.

But that cliffhanger of an ending? All I'm going to say is that IT BETTER GO MY WAY.

*cough* and the bad

You knew this wasn't going to be all yays and points. There is a whole star and a half missing here, and unfortunately I have more than a few reasons why.

First off, I read an ARC, and oh lord do I hope the finished version has had a lot more work done to it. Plot holes! Incoherent superpowers! Wandering plot! Shoddy world-building!

A lot of The Darkest Minds was just a hot mess. It felt like a rush-job that was put out there before it was ready. I feel like it makes so much more sense in the author's mind and it's really totally developed and even intricate...but only about 70% made it to paper.I want to read the 100% version, because that would be awesome.

Add to that the flat characters, survival stupidity, and pity party main character, I'm sometimes surprised by how much I actually did like this book.

The ideas were good, and I think I ran with that, even while part of me was sitting there thinking, "wait, what? NO, this is only half-baked!"

And Ruby. Boy, did I want to like her. Sadly, she commits two of my biggest MC pet-peeves. First, she spends the entire (long) book moping in timid indecision, internally whining over how everyone will hate her if they find out the truth about her. Honey, *I* was starting to hate you, and it had nothing to do with your superpower.

Which leads me to grievous MC sin number two: Superpower squandering. Ruby would rather take the LALAALALA-I'M-NOT-LISTENING approach to her powers instead of actually, you know, using them. I don't read a book about people with superpowers so I can listen to them cry about how woe-is-me they are for having them and ignore their power because it is oh so scary.

Please.

Now, fine, Alexandra Bracken at least gives Ruby a pretty legit reason to be afraid of her powers and it did totally tug at my heartstrings and even make me tear up a little, but I really don't care. Superpower squandering is unforgivable.

Ok, let's get down to what's important here

Romance.

While I'm not sure if this is entirely fair on my part, I have to admit I was disappointed. To be frank, I was gunning for Wayland North Does Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia, and I know that's slightly unrealistic.

I mean, wouldn't it be a source of complaint if Alexandra Bracken basically took the same Brightly Woven characters, gave them modern clothes, and called it a day? Wouldn't that be considered lazy? Uncreative? Yeah, probably. But that's what I wanted. Because I'm still pining for Wayland North.

And Liam? He's no Wayland North.

Liam is nice. In real life, I'd probably love him. He makes a good mental picture, has a hot Southern accent, and he's a total gentleman.

He's also super boring. Where was the swagger? The charm? The, I don't know, personality? Basically, I wanted Han Solo and instead I got Luke Skywalker (though hotter, there's that).

And the other guy? (Yeah, we take an annoying detour down that path). All I can say is UGH BARF NO. From the very beginning.

I don't know if I like being emotionally manipulated like that

There were a few gut-punches thrown in there and I'm still not sure how I feel about them. On one hand, they totally worked. I was crying and mentally screaming, "NO NO NO THAT CAN'T HAPPEN STOP NOW!!" which is a definite mark in the win column.

But, eeeeh, did we need to resort to emotional manipulations? Or, maybe I would have liked them more if the rest of the book felt as raw and spectacular as those scenes. As it was, it felt like I was snoozing through a fog of emotional detachment because, while they were nice enough, I really couldn't have cared less about the characters (Chubs excepted).

And then, BAM suddenly I did!

Or did I? Did I care about them, or was their plight just so emotionally transcendent that I'd have to be darn near inhuman not to feel for them (whoever the heck they are)? I think it's the latter. The events made me think how heartbroken I would feel if *I* were the one going through them, or even just how devastating they were conceptually. But they didn't make me feel for Ruby.

So even while I was reeling from all the emotions and loving the fact that Alexandra Bracken went there and that was awesome and amazing and took The Darkest Minds to that great IMPACT level most YA dystopias lack, it still feels kinda like a cheap shot.

Bottom line

The Darkest Minds is not the book I was hoping it would be. Part of that is my own fault for wanting to make it into something it wasn't (and stubbornly refusing to accept it for what it was).

But even accounting for that, this one seems like it needed to spend more time in development. A little more editing, (A LOT) more coherent world-building, and a MC who isn't so wishy-washy would have gone a long way to making The Darkest Minds one of the rare really good YA dystopias.

On an unrelated note, I wish they had kept the original title Black is the Color. It's so fresh and original and striking. The Darkest Minds is so bland, been-there-done-that, and lame. Plus, it never fails to make me think of Michelle Pfeiffer bringing the joy of education to dangerous, misunderstood youths.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Undead by Kirsty McKay
#1 in the Undead series
Release Date: September 1, 2012
Publisher: The Chicken House (Scholastic)
Pages: 272
Received: ARC from publisher
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars Goodreads Page

Summary

From Goodreads:

Out of sight, out of their minds: It's a school-trip splatter fest and completely not cool when the other kids in her class go all braindead on new girl Bobby.

The day of the ski trip, when the bus comes to a stop at a roadside restaurant, everyone gets off and heads in for lunch. Everyone, that is, except Bobby, the new girl, who stays behind with rebel-without-a-clue Smitty.

But they've changed. And not in a good way. Straight up, they're zombies. So the wheels on the bus better go round and round freakin' fast, because that's the only thing keeping Bobby and Smitty from becoming their classmates' next meal. It's kill or be killed in these hunger games, heads are gonna roll, and homework is most definitely gonna be late.

Review

Calibrate your expectations

This is not a deep book. At all. It's not swooningly romantic, it's not heart-pounding exciting, and it's not super funny.

What it IS is a light, fun read that's worthy of a few chuckles, has a breezy romance, and held my interest throughout. Undead should be well received, just so long as readers don't set the expectations bar super high.

Also, while I don't normally associate zombie books with good winter reading, Undead's blizzard setting makes it a perfect book to read now.

Bobby, the girl I thought was a boy

I spent the first chapter or so focusing just as much on whether or not main character Bobby was a boy or a girl as I did on the plot. I don't like narrator gender-ambiguity. It's frustrating and unfortunately pretty indicative of the depth of Bobby's characterization.

On the plus side, Bobby's narration is sufficiently gender-ambiguous that I can totally give Undead to boy readers! So, silver lining?

Back to Bobby. She's likable and has a pretty snarky sense of humor. She's also fairly capable, which is always a plus when reading zombie/survival books. She wasn't exactly Rambo, but she gamely rose to all the decapitating challenges when presented.

Basically, I wouldn't kick her out of my zombie survival group.

But those other characters?

Yeah, none of them are getting invites.

The main guy Smitty was ok, but pretty immature. Not in the, "cute MG level" type of immature, but more in the give girls wedgies and harp on 5th grade level humor kind of immature. So while he was nice and ultimately a decent guy, he was also annoying. Then again, I'm OLD, so what do I know?

There's also the smart character, and while smart characters usually make my auto approve list for zombie/post-apoc catastrophes, this one had me seriously weighing their usefulness versus their irritating personality. At certain points I would have definitely opted to take my chances without that know it all. But, again, not all bad.

And finally, what would a zombie Breakfast Club be without the popular girl? She's entirely stereotypical and there really isn't much else to say about her than that.

Taken all together, the motley group was at times funny and endearing, but also frequently irritating. Though it was a mild irritating, so there's that.

But so what?

The thing is, the characters don't need to be all that great. Do you look for likable characters with incredible depth when watching horror movies? No!

Undead is not supposed to be a deep book and the characters aren't supposed to be super developed or likable (think fairy tale characters). The plot is what's important here, and the plot is pretty decent.

Everything moves at a brisk enough pace and the setting changes often enough that I never got bored with where we were or what we were doing. It was predictable in some regards (obviously Smitty and the MC will fall for each other), but I was surprised several times by the direction the plot took. In a good way.

And even though I didn't love any of the characters, I was attached enough that I cared what happened to them. There were a few times where I was at the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next and if everyone would make it out okay.

Sometimes what did happen next was kind of far fetched verging on ridiculous, but I thought that was part of the charm of Undead. This isn't a book that takes itself seriously, and I had a lot of fun with that.

Bottom line

Undead won't be making it on the top adolescent literature lists anytime soon, but I can already hear the giddy buzz brewing among my tweens (girls AND boys!). I have a feeling this one will get passed around my library and school district through lots of word of mouth.

The zombies are more of the Evil Dead gross but funny variety, so scaredy cats like myself needn't worry. Among my readers, I think this will be more popular with the tweens, but I know at least a handful of teens will also enjoy it.

For myself, I had fun with Undead. I wouldn't rush out to buy it, but I'd check out the sequel or another book by the author if it came into my library system. The ending most definitely leads into a sequel and readers who become attached to the story will probably be pretty desperate to get their hands on the next book. Me? I'm okay waiting, but I'm still curious to find out what happens next.

When Petunia, the youngest of King Gregor's twelve dancing daughters, is invited to visit an elderly friend in the neighboring country of Westfalin, she welcomes the change of scenery. But in order to reach Westfalin, Petunia must pass through a forest where strange two-legged wolves are rumored to exist. Wolves intent on redistributing the wealth of the noble citizens who have entered their territory. But the bandit-wolves prove more rakishly handsome than truly dangerous, and it's not until Petunia reaches her destination that she realizes the kindly grandmother she has been summoned to visit is really an enemy bent on restoring an age-old curse.

The stories of Red Riding Hood and Robin Hood get a twist as Petunia and her many sisters take on bandits, grannies, and the new King Under Stone to end their family curse once and for all.

Review

Oh, expectations...

I loved Princess of the Midnight Ball, the first installment in this series, so much that I'm always trying to shove it into some unsuspecting reader's hands. The second book, Princess of Glasswas enjoyable, but I didn't love it as much as the first. Still, it's fun and both can be read as standalones, so I'm often recommending both to my tween and teen readers.

Sadly, and after much bated-breath anticipation, I have to come to terms with the fact that Princess of the Silver Woods is the weakest of the bunch for me. I'll still order a copy for my library, but I don't think it will get passed around as much as the other Jessica Day George books I've ordered.

Who do I give this book to?

First, there's the question of age. The two earlier books were sweet and light enough that I can easily give them to middle grade readers. They're also both layered enough that they hold the interest of teen and older readers (particularly the first book centering on eldest sister Rose).

Princess of the Silver Woods reads much younger. I'm not sure many of my teen and older readers would enjoy it as much as they did the earlier installments. I'm thinking I'll be passing this to tweens more often than teens. And as for myself, I was definitely feeling the, "This book is for younger readers and I'm bored now" vibe. (And for the record, I hate that vibe because it makes me feel old.)

The second question is whether or not I should give it to readers who have not read the earlier books in the series. And, ok, it's not much of a question because of course I'll provide the earlier books, if for no other reason than they're good books that should be read. But, is it necessary to read them in order? I'm not so sure it is.

I'm of course coming from the perspective of having read the earlier books, but I think Jessica Day George does a more than adequate job of recapping previous events, especially the events from the first book (and the events from the second book don't have much of an impact on this story). Readers unfamiliar with books one and two shouldn't have much difficulty understanding and enjoying book three.

I might even go so far as to say that readers who haven't read the first book may even enjoy Princess of the Silver Woods more than those who have read the whole series. Which brings me to one of my biggest complaints.

Haven't I already read this book?

In the first book, the King Under Stone is wreaking havoc on the sisters' lives by magically forcing them to travel to his kingdom every night and dance with his sons, to whom the princesses are bethrothed. The princesses fight this evil with the help of a handsome man who falls in love with oldest sister Rose.

In Princess of the Silver Woods, the new King Under Stone is weraking havoc on the sisters' lives by magically forcing them to travel to his kingdom and dance with his brothers, with whom the princesses are expected to have children. The princesses fight this evil with the help of a handsome man who falls in love with youngest sister Petunia.

Notice any similarities? Now, ok, not everything is exactly the same, but it felt way too similar to Princess of the Midnight Ball to really hold my interest. I was expecting a whole new story, not a reworking of a story I had already read.

Other disappointments

The characters felt really under-developed. I had very little idea of what set Petunia apart from her sisters (none of which were particularly distinct) and while Oliver felt a little more defined, his personality didn't seem entirely consistent (he lays down everything to protect his people and then tosses it all away in a second because of love for a girl he just met??)

The only solid character trait I could come up with for Petunia is that she's frustratingly slow when it comes to puzzling things out. Though I would love to attribute that complaint to my super awesome powers of deduction, I don't think I can take credit here. The bad guy was RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER FACE and she kept saying, "Oh no, but they're so nice!" and then not even investigating things (how do you not investigate things?!).

And, I mean, it's not like we needed Nancy Drew to solve this mystery. It was pretty much stated as fact. I'm totally baffled as to why Petunia refused to consider the possibility, let alone actually acknowledge the obvious truth. I didn't like feeling so exasperated with her and I really didn't like reading her repetitive denials throughout the whole book (right up until she did something REALLY dumb, and for an equally incomprehensible reason).

So where did the stars come from?

Because I love Jessica Day George's books. They're just so fluffy and sweet. I may not have been able to tell the sisters apart, but I loved their banter and the way they always supported one another. Her books are easy to read and they make me happy. Jessica Day George is the ultimate comfort read author.

They're like the book equivalent to a puppy. Even when puppies do something bad or are kind of scruffy looking, they're still adorable puppies and I can't help but love them.

Bottom line

Not the strongest book and not something I'll buy for myself. I do think it will be popular enough with my middle grade girls to warrant placing a library order though.

Read it as a standalone or as a part of the series. Skip the middle book or read all three. Just don't expect something BRAND NEW or super deep and Princess of the Silver Woods should still be able to deliver as a quick, fun, sweet comfort read.

Young Catherine de' Medici is the sole heiress to the entire fortune of the wealthy Medici family. But her life is far from luxurious. After a childhood spent locked away behind the walls of a convent, she joins the household of the pope, where at last she can be united with her true love. But, all too soon, that love is replaced with an engagement to a boy who is cold and aloof. It soon becomes clear that Catherine will need all the cunning she can muster to command the respect she deserves as one of France's most powerful queens.

Review

Catherine's boring

She's nice enough, but not in a good way. She's nice the way where I use "nice" to describe an inoffensive person when I can't think of anything else to say about them. Maybe I could also throw in bland and meek? That isn't helping matters, is it?

There just wasn't much to her. I also get the feeling that I don't have a clue what the real Catherine de' Medici was like. Catherine, the historical figure, is described in lots of very NOT nice ways, but there wasn't anything in Duchessina to even hint at any of that.

The plot is dreary

This isn't really Carolyn Meyer's fault. I mean, if she tried to spice things up by deviating from history I'd start complaining about that, so really, I can't hold this against her. Much.

Catherine's childhood is mostly a bunch of moving around from one convent to another. She's cut off from most of the world and, when she finally gets to France, she isn't given any political power (until after the book ends). So, yeah, kind of dull.

I'm not entirely convinced this couldn't have been made more interesting, though. Lots of political stuff was going on around Catherine, and I don't see why it couldn't have been integrated into the story more. I would have liked more details about the wars, battles, conspiracies, strife, and upheaval. Basically, all of the things that caused Catherine to have to move and go into hiding.

Also, her life is sad. Again, not Carolyn Meyer's fault. Catherine's childhood was full of death, failure, abandonment, starvation, and sadness. This was not a particularly uplifting book.

Maybe if I had cared more about Catherine I could have at least gotten into all that sadness. I mean, I went through a Lurlene McDaniel phase in my tween years and I'm a diehard Beaches fan, so it's not like I'm totally opposed to a good cry-fest. But I shed nary a tear for boring Catherine. I just couldn't muster up a care (and to put this in perspective, Carolyn Meyer had me sobbing at the end of her book about Marie Antoinette).

Everything's all uneven

I like a well-plotted book with a clear purpose and progression of events. I don't like slow paced books, but I also don't like unevenly paced books. Duchessina was both.

The slowness comes from the lack of really anything happening. There weren't even a ton of historical factoids to keep me occupied. Nothing propelled me to keep reading other than the fact that the book didn't have many pages and I didn't dislike it enough to stop. Also, I wasn't sure what I wanted to read next.

The uneven pacing is something I've also complained about with the Cleopatra book in this series. As in Cleopatra Confesses, Duchessina focuses on Catherine's childhood and stops just as things are getting good. I guess it is nice having a chance to get to know Catherine's life before she became the great historical figure, but it was frustrating to have Carolyn Meyer hint at Catherine's reputation and then never back up those hints with anything.

I also didn't appreciate the rush at the end. If we're stopping the story at a point other than Catherine's death, then just stop the story, please. Instead, I got a rushed synopsis of Catherine's life from the events at the end of the book up until her death. It was like watching a movie of her life and then getting bored partway through and watching the rest with the fast forward button pressed.

Bottom line

I love the idea of this series, but the reality isn't measuring up to my expectations. I feel like the Young Royals series is getting the, "Oh it's just YA" treatment, which I equate to sloppy stories with weak character development and little regard for accuracy. Young adults demand better, and it would be nice if authors and publishers took note.

So I'll be passing on ordering this one for my library. I did order and highly recommend The Bad Queen about Marie Antoinette, so I won't give up on the Young Royals series just yet!